The invention relates to the field of telecommunications, and particularly to wireless communication networks. Among other areas, it has applicability to networks such as GPRS and IDEN, and networks according to the IEEE 802.11 standard.
In a typical communications architecture, users are coupled for communication with one or more nodes, such as base stations, servers, etc., which, in turn, are coupled for communication with public communication networks such as the Internet, and which support technology coverage areas within the network. Communications between such users pass through their respective base stations, and across the public networks. Such users employ mobile equipment, such as laptop or other portable computers, cellular telephones, etc.
A service provider provides various types of services to its customers. A service provider will provide a menu of available services, from which the customer chooses. Examples of such available services include Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Message Service (MMS). From time to time, the service provider will make new services available to its customers. Before a service provider deploys the new service, they generally will want to perform a test and validation of the service. Examples of such functions to be tested and validated include service activation and service performance. Validation may be needed on a variety of different types of mobile equipment.
Various sets of operating parameters are associated with the respective services. A service provider supporting a given service will need access to data regarding that service provided to its customers. Service providers conventionally have used specialized test equipment and performed “drive” tests to measure network performance both inside and outside of their network. The service provider accesses the data by monitoring the various system infrastructure components at the base stations and elsewhere in the network. Service providers conduct surveys of their customers to understand, for instance, the service level and performance quality provided under the service offerings. Test labs are also set up to simulate the expected environments. However, these methods have had the drawback that they cannot directly measure customer experience.
Service providers conventionally have very limited or no visibility into the performance of the network and services being used by their customers, especially when trying to ascertain the performance of new services being used by early adopters of the new services. At such times, the service providers need information on such new service performance, in order to handle problems, and otherwise to be responsive to their customers' needs.
This drawback also becomes important as customers switch between different services offered by the service provider, particularly as they switch to new service offerings. The user's operation of the mobile equipment is outside of the service provider's control, so the service provider conventionally has little or no insight as to the level of service the customer is receiving. For an old, established service, the service provider may have a “track record” of the service's performance. However, for a new service offering, the service provider must depend on getting timely, detailed and complete information on its customers' experience with the new service offering. The service provider's inability to obtain information directly reflective of the service's performance, as the user experiences it, disadvantageously limits the service provider's ability to provide the customer with effective support, and may delay the deployment of new services.